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Some ivory sales are a good idea. This one isn’t

IN 1989 the signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agreed to ban the ivory trade, and banned it has remained. Except, that is, for when CITES chooses to allow it—as it has done now and then since 1997, when specific countries have some well-sourced ivory to get rid of. Most recently, in 2008, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe were allowed to make such sales to China and Japan. Now, as the triennial CITES meeting gets under way in Doha, both Tanzania and Zambia say they want to do something similar.

Those in favour of such sales (most notably, the countries which seek to make them) say they allow countries to benefit from having elephants, and help to finance elephant conservation and protection. Those against them (some conservation charities and some academics in the field) argue that any sale of ivory will lead to an increase in poaching by stimulating demand, and that little of the money raised actually goes to elephants.

Overall, the CITES trade ban seems to have worked pretty well for elephants. In the decade before it was enacted, their numbers dropped from 1.3m to 600,000. Two decades on, the most recent figures suggest there are probably about 555,000 of the beasts, which seems to suggest the overall population is stable. Although some populations are still in a lot of trouble, those in the countries of eastern and southern Africa, which account for two-thirds of African elephants, are actually growing at a healthy 4% a year.

James MacGregor, a researcher in wildlife trade at the International Institute for Environment and Development, a British think tank, argues that one result of this growth is too many elephants in some parts of southern Africa. Surplus pachyderms impose a particular burden on the poor, trashing their crops and attacking water sources, children and old people. Culling is sometimes necessary to deal with these problems, and if culling is to happen anyway, the resulting ivory might as well be used to raise some money.

A recent opinion piece in Science stated baldly that such ivory sales encourage poaching. Dr MacGregor, however, says the evidence for such a claim is lacking. “We have no baseline data on how much ivory is in the market, how much is on sale, what proportion is mammoth, whale, hippo and bone. We do not have time series on the number of elephants.” Katarzyna Nowak, a researcher at Princeton who was one of the authors of the piece in Science, seems to agree. “Evidence showing a relationship between one-off sales and poaching is lacking,” she says. A press release from the University of British Columbia which accompanied the piece helpfully pointed out that the petition to allow the ivory sale should be denied because “no adequate monitoring of the impact of ivory sales ... exists”.

With no data, stories about the effect sales have on poaching can be made up to support either position. On the one hand, a sale would lower the price and thus reduce the incentive to poach. On the other, it might increase demand by confusing consumers and also advertising the availability of ivory. Will Travers, the chief executive of the Born Free Foundation, a British wildlife charity, blames the sale in 2008 for the opening of a number of new ivory shops in China. But monitoring evidence suggests that what is really driving poaching is the illicit ivory markets that are flourishing across Africa, as well as in Vietnam and Myanmar.

So where does this leave Tanzania and Zambia? The sale of 112 tonnes of stockpiled ivory could raise around $17.5m, which, it might be argued, offers the two countries an incentive to conserve elephants. But both places have poor records of monitoring and policing their elephant populations, and have been heavily implicated in epidemics of poaching that have broken out in the last decade. Mr Travers, who has visited some of the stockpiles in these countries, says it is impossible to tell where the ivory came from. He thinks it is likely that much was seized from poaching. Allowing a dodgy police force to sell stolen goods that it has confiscated would not be much of an incentive for the eradication of poaching. The CITES secretariat, however, has recommended supporting the Zambian ivory-trade proposal. It remains to be seen whether the member nations will agree.

The weakness of this particular case, though, is not evidence supporting those who oppose all such sales. If African countries are to invest in their elephants they have to be able to see a clear path to a return on the investment. Tourism, once the great hope, rarely seems to be the answer that pro-elephant groups have claimed. Arguably, Kenya has made a success of its safari trade. But on 95% of the land where wildlife is found it nets landlords no money at all, thanks to laws that prevent animals being hunted for food, sport or valuable body parts.

To make elephants worth more alive than dead, success needs to be rewarded. These sales do not seem to qualify, but others in the future will.